Me and you and Baby Makes Three
by donnapie
Summary: Short drabbles for every episode of season 11 as the show progresses. Japril in not more than 500 words. Spoilers.
1. I would do anything for love

He's never been good at making friends.

He has always been the odd man out perhaps because he's too rich or too good looking or perhaps because he's just too much of everything.

It was definitely not his style to seek anyone out.

To invite them to kick back, hang out and then grab a few beers.

Girls are easy.

But men?

They always tend to see him as competition and only rarely as a buddy.

So it's awkward.

To stand here and ask Hunt out when all he wanted to do is to go home, take a shower and then make love to his gorgeous, very pregnant wife.

But then she made him imagine.

About how it would be like if she was the one who left and he is all alone in their bed and the thought is enough to send him running.

He's sure it would be devastating.

Or maybe he's just pussywhipped.

He couldn't care less.

He'd do anything even babysit Hunt, if that's what it takes to make her, his wife, the love of his life happy.


	2. Let Me Blow Your Mind

It's been awhile since they did this.

It's been some time since they hooked up in a supply closet like high school kids, tearing each others clothes off as they kiss, hands groping at every inch of bared skin, breaths mingling together.

"I'm so - "

He tells her as he comes up for air, his lips now pressed against her neck.

"-pissed-"

Kiss.

"-at Maggie -"

Suck.

"- And Bailey-"

Tug.

"That genome lab should have not been opened without my permission!"

Kiss. Kiss. Suck. Tug.

She rolls her eyes both in desire and exasperation as she listens to him rambling on, her body humming with need while he rants and simultaneously makes her weak at the knees.

"My patient had a stroke."

She mentions.

"And Bailey, she knows better! She-"

He continues.

Barely listening to her, all wrapped up in his emotions, half in lust, half in anger.

"From having sex."

She dropped casually as she pulled away from him to kneel, her hands playing seductively with the waistband of his pants.

He stops at that.

His eyes blinking rapidly as he looks down at her while she looks up at him all innocently as she slowly strokes him with her hand.

"Soooo, your call. Would you rather have a stroke from being mad or from having mind blowing, toe curling sex with your wife?"

He grins.

And there was no more talking after that.


	3. All of me loves all of you

"You wouldn't believe the kind of day-"

"So, you know what happened with the Shep-"

They both started talking on that rare occassion when they are both at home at the same time and eating at their dinner table.

"You go first."

He said.

"No, you go first."

She insisted.

Bracing herself for yet another one of his now familiar ranting sessions because lately he's been stressed and working himself to the ground and heaven knows- lord knows- that she's trying to be a supportive and understanding wife but God, she misses her husband and so she can't help but resent him a little as she prepared herself for yet another one of his monologues as he vents about all the crap he's dealing with at the hospital without even caring if she listens.

But tonight there was something different about him.

There is a fire in his eyes and an air of excitement in his tone as he told her about how he has this new project that he and Callie and Owen are working on.

It is the same joy and passion that she saw when they got their blue scrubs and when he switched specialities from Derek's neuro to Mark's plastics.

It is the same joie de vivre.

The same fervor that he exhibits whenever he gets a really challenging case or when he changes lives because of his profession.

It was then that she remembered.

That she loves him because he is _more_.

That she is head over heels for him because he's more than her friend, her lover, her husband and the father of her soon to be born child and that before all of that he is his own person, Jackson.

The responsible leader, the committed team player, a brilliant, _BRILLIANT_ surgeon.

Instinctively, she finds herself standing up and leaning towards him from across the table.

Catching him in suprise as she cuts him off midsentence when she presses her lips softly against his.

He looks at her in utter confusion.

His eyebrows furrowing in bewilderment at her unexpected gesture.

"Ummm, babe, not that i'm complaining, but what was that for?"

She smiles at him tenderly before speaking softly.

"Nothing. I'm just proud of you, is all."

And the way he reached for her hand and squeezed it lovingly tells her that theres no need for her to say it, he already knows.


	4. You'll Always Be My Number One

"It's a good thing about Maggie."

She told him as they lie in bed that night, him reading a book with his arms around her shoulder, and her in the nook of his arms, feeling warm and comfortable and just a teeny, tiny bit sleepy.

"Mmmhmmm..."

He said mindlessly.

His eyes still fixed on his book, his brows knitted together..

"I told them i'd get on it but it seems like Grey beat me to it...which is still probably a good thing because at least she's staying."

He added the last like it was an afterthought and she looked up at him.

All playful smiles and with a mischievous glint in her eye as she thought about teasing him.

"Well, i'm not surprised. You do have a history of always being one step behind."

_That_ quickly got his attention and that's when he put his book down.

"What do you mean?"

He asked her with a curious expression on his face.

"Welllll... let's see..."

She drawled impishly as she ticked off all the examples on her finger.

"I had to make the first move so that you would make love to me, You arrived at Joe's to make me stay when i'm already on a bus for Moline and who could ever forget your declaration of love when i am already in a wedding dress and standing in front of the altar, all set to marry another man?"

He groans.

She giggles.

"You'd never make me live that down, would you?"

He looked at her with a grin.

"Nope."

She shakes her head and he chuckles.

"You do know that i'm the only man who would tolerate you making a joke out of his greatest moment of embarassment, right?"

She chewed on her bottom lip pensively as if she was thinking hard before replying jauntily.

"In the past, Matthew also did."

He stops grinning.

"However..."

She started in a sing songy voice before he begins sulking and pouting.

"It was only you that i cannot stop thinking about even when i was dating him. It was only you that i really, truly, deeply love even when i was about to marry him."

She felt rather than saw the smile that was beginning to form at the corner of his lips.

"You may always be late but you always came first here."

She grabs his hand and placed it on her chest.

"Oh, yeah?"

He whispered tenderly.

"Yeah."

She confirms.

And he grins once again but this time, blindingly.


	5. This is Our Happy Ending

Instinctively, she reached out for him.

Her fingers lacing delicately with his, her other hand cupping his face tenderly.

He looked at her all askance, not really surprised nor curious about her sudden touch because it was the somberness in her face that he is interested in.

"Promise me that we won't ever, _ever_ break up?"

She said from out of the blue. Her head resting on his lap, her brown eyes peering up at him.

On any other day, he would have just laughed it off and teased her mercilessly.

On any other day, if it was not one of their friends' marriage slowly falling apart, he would have just told her "of course" before kissing her passionately.

But today?

Today, her words hit too close to home and he remembered when it was_ them_ and when he easily gave her up because he thought that it was what was good for them.

He thought about those days spent in agonizing heartache and those nights when he lied in bed all choked up in miserable pain because they were stupid enough to believe that it was right and honest and that they will survive if they just keep on denying how they really feel.

He remembered moments when they've been up and down, tossed left and right and challenged by individual relationships that were just plain wrong from every side .

He recalled times when they've been the best of friends and then confused and then broken up, all right before they can even tell each other that they are in love.

But despite it all...

Through it all...

Still, here they are.

Married and pregnant and so damn head over heels that sometimes it just friggin' hurts.

He rubs her swollen belly and she gives him a tender smile.

In that mundane, fleeting moment he knew that they would survive.

_They will make it_.

They have already learnt their lesson the hard way, he won't let her go, they will not make the same mistakes again.


	6. Papa was a Rollin' Stone

**Things he's pretty sure of:**

1\. He loves his wife (who, by the way, he's positive now is a natural redhead).

2\. He's got gorgeous eyes (yup, pretty sure about that, he's heard it a million times)

3\. He owns the freaking hospital (so no one will question him if he sometimes plays hooky).

4\. He's got the sweetest, sweetest mother in law in the planet (he _adores_ her).

5\. April's kisses are the best (it still makes him weak in the knees, instant hard on, baby!).

**Things he doesn't know:**

1\. If April's dad and sisters will like him as much as her mother. (_Note to self, must put in other column:_ He's pretty sure that Kimmie is Team Matthew and that she hates him).

2\. His fathers whereabouts (he's over it).

3\. Was screw A properly attached to port A for that rocking chair he built April? (Where the hell did he put that instruction manual?)

4\. Would there ever come a time in his life when he'd become a fan of April "the jerk"? (but on hindsight, even the things he don't like, he loves, so what the heck!)

5\. Will he be able to nurture and raise their child the right way so that he (or she) doesn't grow up to become a serial killer (or a slut, even if in the end, they do decide to name her Phoebe).

6\. What happens in the future.

(But right now, she's hugging him and telling him once again how he'd be a great daddy, so he's pretty sure he'd turn out to be an awesome father...she's got his back, _he can_ _do this, _as long as she's right beside him).


	7. These dreams they keep me awake

He wakes up from a bad dream.

What was it?

He can barely remember.

All he knows was that April was lying in his arms, lifeless, eyes closed, not even breathing.

And he is filled with fear.

And he is no stranger to fear.

What, with the shooting and the plane crash and Mark's death and watching the love of his life almost got married, he's known fear.

He's lived in it.

He's gone through it, also got over it.

But this time is different.

It is gripping.

Mind numbing.

The kind that feels as if his world is slowly falling apart and that his heart is being ripped into shreds as he watches from the side.

And then he wakes up.

Sweat beaded unto his forehead, heart racing, mouth gasping for air.

Just a few hours ago, they sat on a hospital bench.

Talking about her God and about how bad things happen and how he believes that they happen because they happen.

How ironic.

That now after that dream and after just a few hours, the thought of April being dead, that reason just won't cut it.

He can't accept it.

_HE WON'T._

C'mon! What kind of sick fuck would fate have to be if it would play that twisted joke on him and the only woman who showed him how capable he is of being loved and of loving?

What kind of empty existence is he supposed to live without her beside him?

All of a sudden he feels afraid again.

And that's when he turned his head and he saw her quietly sleeping beside him.

Hair spilling like fire, arms splayed, lips slightly open, nose twitching, gently snoring.

And only then did he feel the horror subsiding.

_April is there._

His worries now feel far away, he feels whole, his world is right again.


	8. You Giveth and You Taketh Away

He knows how it feels.

To have your dreams crushed and to have your heart broken.

He knows the heartache of pining and longing for a loved one.

To be excited and expectant because one minute they were there and then one day you wake up and the next minute they just aren't.

He's gone through the devastation of losing a family member.

Of feeling incomplete and defective and that a part of him was missing just because he didn't get to know his father.

You see, loss is nothing new to him but it doesn't compare to this.

It doesn't hold a candle to hearing that their unborn child might probably die and to the prospect that he'd bear witness to April's brokenness when it happens as he watches her slowly become undone.

He was just starting to make her happy.

To be a loving husband and to be a doting father, to make up for his past mistakes because she's suffered so much because of him.

_For him._

She's gone through the devastation of betrayal when he started dating Stephanie because of stupid pride, the sting of rejection when she laid herself vulnerable to him, the embarassment of being the subject of thinly veiled gossip just because _she chose to be with him._

And so far, he was doing a fucking great job of making it up to her.

Of proving to her that she chose right and chose well, but why does shit always have to happen to him?

To her.

_To them._

He should tell her.

She deserves to know the truth because it will hurt her more if he keeps it from her.

He watches her from the door as she sat unaware of his presence.

Her eyes closed, humming a tune and rubbing her belly as she lazily rocked in the chair which he's built her.

"April-"

He began tentatively.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

"You're here."

She reached out her hand to him.

She was beaming.

Her eyes all aglow, her cheeks flushed with happiness, her world seemingly so perfect but he was unraveling.

He takes her hand then.

He should tell her.

She needs to know.

Just not right now, not when she's this happy, not when he knows what it feels like, not when he knows what happens next after life deals you the lowest of blows.


	9. You and Me, We Are Soldiers

"Did I tell you it's a boy? We're having a boy."

His arms muffles the last of her voice but that does not stop her words from hanging heavily in the air.

This should have been a happy occasion.

One that should have ben met with joyous exuberance and fanfare, perhaps with him sitting after dinner at home, and her, presenting him with a onesie telling him of their childs gender, or maybe with family and friends wherein they'd cut into a cake with bated breath until they see blue at its center.

He wishes that that was the truth.

That they are laughing together instead of him crying with her, that everything is simple and normal instead of fate being a sick motherfucker and giving them the dirty finger.

Her breath catches on a sob and he hugs her even tighter in his embrace.

He wants to remind her that she is a soldier but it is not the time for analogy, but rather, for him to say something comforting the way only he used to previously know how.

_I just wanted to tell you that -_

_\- That_

His adams apple bobs up and down as he searches for the words because frankly, he has none.

He strokes her hair with his hand.

Soothing her and calming her, quieting down her anxious heart.

_Whatever you need, i'm here._

He feels he should say something more than that.

That he should _DO_ more than that.

But he has nothing more to offer, he's also beatdown, he is broken...

_FOR NOW._

(Tomorrow is another day, he won't lose hope - he'd give her hope, together, he'd do anything so that they can win this fight).


	10. These Stages of Grief

**SHOCK**

She lies still as the needle pierces her stomach, she winces a little coz it hurts but not as much as her heart.

**DENIAL**

She knows what Jackson wanted to say even if she doesn't hear it from his mouth and a part of her understands, but still, she believes that they can do it, she refuses to give up.

**PAIN**

The waiting is killing her, she needs to know but even if she does, what good does it have?

**GUILT**

She sits with her mother in an empty church. Her eyes closed, her prayers fervent.

If only she knew earlier, if only she'd been more careful, if only.

_If only_.

Maybe this is God's way of punishing her.

For hurting Stephanie, for hurting Matthew, for being greedy, for wanting Jackson with all of her might.

**ANGER**

She tunes them out.

Her mother and her husbands shouting and debating, but their yelling makes her head ache and her heart pound and she joins in on the fray, eyes blazing, voice raising and it feels good to finally show a crack in her formerly stoic, numb facade.

**BARGAINING**

She's scared.

She's never been this scared in all of her life.

Not when she left Moline or lost her virginity or failed the boards, not even when Jackson was sleeping with Stephanie, so please God.

_Please_.

Please spare the life of our child.

**LONELINESS**

She was lying in bed for some time.

The silence deafening, the sadness eating her alive.

She feels him slipping in behind her.

Her husband, the love of her life.

For awhile, her world returned to normal.

For awhile, she just wants to stay like this, for awhile.

**ACCEPTANCE**

They're back in that room.

That room in the hospital she's now grown to hate.

It's the hour of reckoning, the hour of judgment.

They've helped so many children to live, God will not forsake her, surely, he won't make them lose theirs instead?


	11. Save Me from this Heartache

And just like that… It was over even before it began.

Her pregnancy, her being a mother, their being parents or whatever that thing that happened to them was.

Ironically, her eyes were dry when she got a glimpse of their son for the last time.

She was silent when they laid his body to rest and she still does not say a word, not even if they've been home for hours.

She hates this.

She hates this feeling of emptiness and resentment, this deep pit within her soul that feels as if it will never, ever be assuaged, not by her faith or by her God, probably not by anyone.

She went through the motions of life as she knew it mechanically.

She folded the laundry, had dinner, nodded at some silly story that Jackson was telling and yet she knows she will never be the same. She is forever changed and it was only when she was alone in the bath that she finally cried the great, wracking sobs that she had been holding on to ever since she stepped inside the door and got a glimpse of the nursery that they had once upon a time happily decorated.

She doesn't know how much time had passed. She probably fell asleep in the tub because the next thing she knew, she was waking up to the feel of familiar arms around her as Jackson wraps her in a towel and carries her out.

She lets him treat her like a child.

To pull off her clothes and change her, to brush her hair and tuck her into bed, to lay her down and kiss her on the forehead.

"Get some sleep."

He whispered.

Truthfully, she doesn't want to but she still finds herself saying "okay".

She must have been more tired than she gave herself credit for because the next thing she knew, she was out like a light and it was then when the nightmares began.

Of babies being yanked away from her arms and her running over and over around the hospital hallways looking for something but never quite finding what it was.

Her breath came in shallow gasps when she pried her eyes open. Goosebumps peppered her arms as she felt the chill of the winter air blowing in from inside their open window and it was then that she turned to look at Jackson.

His face was contorted with pain, he was mumbling something under his breath, sweat was beaded unto his forehead.

She felt the broken pieces of herself with fresh pain as she felt his pain but as she turned and cuddled closer to him, it was his warmth that lulled her back to sleep.

It was his presence that reminded her that life goes on.

That she still has him to live for and she can do nothing else but to press her face closer against his neck and to cling on to him even tighter.


End file.
